


Cruise Control

by LucyAnne



Category: Cherry Almanac
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21894574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucyAnne/pseuds/LucyAnne
Summary: Marshall can't do anything right.(CW: Road accidents, claustrophobia)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Cruise Control

45 mph. In a 55 mph zone. Where people were normally inclined to go 60, and the local cops always looked the other way if you did.

Normally, someone driving like this would be more than enough to give Marshall a migraine, and he would've immediately assumed they were some interloping tourist from two states over. Today, however, it was Marshall who drove this speed, and he didn't think twice about doing it. Not in this weather. And not with his mother, empurpled as she was, steaming silently in the passenger seat beside him.

They'd just finished with Marshall’s second attempt (in roughly as many months of grueling practice) at passing his driving exam. It had gone about as well as his initial endeavor, which is to say it had involved at least one (1) near-death experience and some particularly colorful language emitted by his caffeine-fueled proctor. He hadn’t fought the woman’s decision to fail him (as certain as he was that she merely loathed him on a personal level), although even his mother would later agree there’d been no need to score him as harshly as she had.

Instead, Marshall resigned himself to a state of silent resentment, preferring for the moment to not let his shame or embarrassment show. He accomplished this by donning a mask of understanding and reluctant acceptance, a mask which slipped fully from his face the instant his mother casually informed him he’d be returning to the class he’d cut out of to drive these forty miles to the nearest DMV. Although an ostensibly reasonable request, it in fact stood in rather stark contrast with the frozen custard she’d bought him as consolation after the first time he’d failed his test, and as such caused his facade of composure to melt away like the snowflakes which tossed themselves with such bravado before the heated windshield of their car.

He'd snapped, and the subsequent cursory remarks the two of them made to each other resulted in a fairly heated debate (which had ended, fortunately enough, with the pair gazing out of their respective windows silently, refusing altogether to even acknowledge of the other's existence). 

This arrangement was fine by Marshall, who took the opportunity to wallow in the comforting lull of self-pity, while he left the autopilot feature of the stocky green minivan he commanded to assume the role of competent driver on that long, unbroken stretch of frozen North Dakota Highway.

This, curiously enough, was how he found himself first taking notice of the large white van trailing them some ¾ of a mile back. Ordinarily, the particular state of mind that having full control of a vehicle put him in would have caused him to regard the van as just another part of the environment, another obstacle to contend with, and another delicately whirring cog in the skeleton-esque machine that was bleak Midwestern traffic. That is to say, it likely would’ve registered on a solely subconscious level. As it was, however, Marshall’s mind was (for the most part) removed from the all-consuming task of driving, and as such, he found himself actively aware of van’s presence (and notably odd behavior) now just a little over a half-mile behind them.  
It stood out to Marshall in the rearview mirror his adolescent eyes were glued to, initially because of its apparent speed (clearly going what looked like well over 65 in a straight and unwavering line), and then because of something the boy found to be slightly more worrying: each of the cars in front of it seemed to be disappearing. 

There had, minutes ago, been at least eight members of their slow and steady procession across that icy expanse, Marshall himself being third from the front. Now, Marshal dutifully noted, there remained only six. He was sure of that. Without any knowledge that he was doing so, his index finger crept up the edge of the yolk and casually held down the button which caused the car to accelerate ever-so-slightly, climbing to a speed of 48 mph.

Still, this remained little more than a casual observation, and Marshall would be hard-pressed to admit his gut told him anything more when alternating variables like the drifting snow obscuring his vision, or the still fresh memories of the day’s failing thus far clouded his already easily distractible young mind. The only thing worth noting at this point was the speeding van itself which, if anything, seemed to be increasing in speed, and which was now... _fifth in line?!_

Risking sparking the ire of his already quite incensed mother, Marshall turned his head fully around to rubberneck at the scene playing out behind him, convinced that there must have been something smudged on the mirror he’d been eyeing that would’ve obscured his vision, but one quick glance out the back window both confirmed his fears and told him otherwise. He’d only turned away for a fraction of a second, but in that small sliver of time, Driver #5 (a dull red Pontiac, whose driver was obscured by distance and tinted class) had utterly vanished from the increasingly barren stretch of cracked asphalt they found themselves traversing. What Marshall had suspected (and until this very moment hadn't actually confirmed) was the total absence of any and all side roads, houses, or potential pit stops that Driver #5 could have possibly turned onto. 

What was more, they surely hadn’t pulled over to the side of the road, owing to both the thick white dunes that had long ago laid claim to the majority of the shoulder, and the fact that they simply weren’t there. They weren’t anywhere. At least, not that Marshall could see, but even in these unsavory Winter conditions, his position on the road afforded him an all-encompassing view of the flat landscape that lay before, behind, and around him. No matter where he cast his gaze though, the car didn’t show up, and he suddenly found himself almost wishing he’d catch a glimpse of it flipped upside-down in a ditch, if only to provide a practical explanation for its apparent departure from reality. His finger moved up again. He was aware of its movements this time, but did nothing to hinder them.  
55 mph. 

He was trying to justify the idea that maybe the car had somehow turned around and driven away in the opposite direction with such speed that it had managed to escape his ken in a millisecond’s time, when Marshall saw, in the mirror he regarded with such vigilance, something he’d spend the remainder of his life firmly telling therapist after therapist _hadn’t_ just been some kind of psychotic break. 

The van, which Marshall realized was significantly larger than it’d appeared in the distance, was now barrelling down on the comparatively puny Chrysler struggling to keep ahead of what was quickly becoming its pursuer. The van towered over the car in front of it, close enough that their bumpers had to be touching (although Marshall had no way of knowing for sure, as they were still about a block or so back). Due to the rapid acceleration of the two vehicles closing much of the distance between themselves and Marshall, he could now make out the visibly panic-stricken face of the woman driving the succeeding car as the metallic beast tailing her finally made contact.

Instead of the violent jolt he expected to see as the lady was bucked forward by her chaser, Marshall watched in bewildered horror as the van went _through_ the car in front of it, phasing through the fiberglass body as if it were nothing more than a hologram. The sheer size and scope of the van was such that it enveloped the aggregate of the carriage it passed through, leaving not so much as a side-mirror sticking off one side or the other. Marshall made momentary eye contact with the woman in the driver’s seat; just enough time for him to really soak in the pleading, confused fear emanating from deep within her sockets as the logo-less grill of the van pushed effortlessly through her sternum, and the last features of her terrified face melded with the growling engine behind her. 

He could see now, from this distance of less than fifty feet, that behind the darkened glass of the van’s windshield squirmed a tangled mass of contorted bodies and limbs, packed so tightly against one another in the confines of that cramped cabin that he couldn’t even make out where the steering wheel was supposed to be. Then, amidst that awful, claustrophobia-inducing huddle (which threatened to invoke in Marshall a debilitating asthma attack purely by looking at it) he thought he could see a strained shuffle of movement, the wall of flesh part slightly on either side, and a familiar face that was somehow both pleading and void of all emotion be pushed through and shoved up against the dashboard like an unprotesting newborn calf being painfully ejected from its mother’s womb. The van itself left nothing of note in its wake, and somehow Marshall knew that, had the road not been used up until that point that day, it wouldn’t have left a pair of tire tracks in the snow behind. 

All of this happened over the course of what had to have been less than three minutes total. Without even thinking about what he was doing, Marshall jerked his head away from the mirror he’d been so fixated with, and pushed down on the gas pedal hard, all previously-monopolizing thoughts of indignant defeat pushed out with it, only to be replaced by a desperate, instinctive, clawing desire to just get away. 

63 mph. 

Now Marshall himself was coming up on the bumper of a rusted pickup ahead of him as the van drew ever closer, and so he careened into the (thankfully empty) left lane without using his blinker in an attempt to get around it. His mother, who had remained completely oblivious to every aspect of the situation up until this very moment, cried out in protest, still blissfully unaware of the growing peril falling down upon them. 

The knuckles on both of Marshall's hands shone through the thin layer of skin covering them like bright, burning coals as he gripped the steering wheel with both hands for dear life. A dull, droning wail emitted from the pickup truck in an attempt to convey to Marshall the recklessness of his own behavior in the moment fell on deaf ears, and soon the truck was just another temporary barrier between Marshall and the van. It still wasn't enough for him though. He had to get away, far away, as far away as four wheels and half a tank of gas could possibly get him and his mother.

It was with this wild, unfettered mentality that he approached the trailer hitch of the final car standing between him and the rest of the open road. He was about to ignore his mother's pleas once more with gusto and make another pass at the left lane, when the world fell out from beneath him. The car lost traction with the road entirely, and with it Marshall lost all sense of control. The snow and the ice had become too much. 

70 mph. 

They spun, or fishtailed. In the moment, Marshall wasn't exactly sure of or concerned with the exact terminology, but more so with getting his sweaty palms back on the reigns and ensuring he and his mother both made it out okay. He knew, in that moment, as inertia wrenched the wheels away from him, that he had no sway, and so took a deep breath and accepted it. Rather than wrenching the steering wheel one way or the other, or applying an unnecessary amount of pressure to either of the pedals, he let things happen as nature clearly intended them to, maintaining a tight grip on the steering wheel throughout to keep the vehicle in a steady enough line while he waited for a window of opportunity to arrive. 

When it did, seconds later, he seized it immediately and gently brought the car to a halt at the side of the road, somehow parallel parking perfectly in between two sizeable snow drifts which teased at the edges of the road with the tips of their spilling piles of powdered ice. Marshall took another breath, before realizing that hitting the patch of ice had in fact forced the initial danger of the van from his mind. His whole body seized up, but after a few moments of nothing happening, he scanned the road to find it empty in every direction. His mouth hung open, and he found himself unwilling to accept the danger had been successfully evaded. 

Then his eyes landed on his mother, who only said calmly "Good job correcting that. A lot of people don't know what to do in those situations and end up in ditches because of it, trying to force themselves out of a situation they need to just wait to pass." She paused. "I'm… sorry for yelling. Let's get going alright? But take it slow this time. Gotta get you back to school in one piece."  


Not knowing what else to do, Marshall nodded and swallowed something that wasn't there, before hesitantly pulling back out onto the highway, his foot tentatively resting on the gas pedal, bringing them up to a ponderous speed of 39 mph.


End file.
